Why do bad things happen to good people and bad people flourish?

These thoughts are trite only because we become bored with them but they also are foundational to the ideas of heaven and hell....that sense of ultimate justice winning out and 2+2 will always be 4. The ultimate being will see to it, and if we follow the prescribed rules which result in living a good life we will be the winners eventualy, rewarded for our troubles.

But, there are fine points put to the rules and the fine points can win hell. Relating to what EH posted....a good christian can live a good life, but if there are slight differences varying from one's own traditional way, that person is seen as a canidiate for hell, and he also sees us as one.

Some of the examples of good and evil used here are extremes, but i was a christian long enough to be familair with the exercise of a precisional judgement of who deserves what. So it's gone from 2+2 equalying 4 to fractions.
The greater the fear and insecurity, the greater the need for justice, the sterner and more exacting the god will be, and less the room for compassion.

By the way, not to pick on just the christians, there is also a Buddhist hell, and a Hindu hell, tho one is not sentenced there by a big boss weighing one's pluses and debits on a scale.